A former chemistry professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville admitted to reusing data in grant applications to the National Institutes of Health while claiming that it came from different experiments, according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity.
Surangi (Suranji) Jayawardena, who joined the UAH faculty in 2017 following a postdoc at MIT, “engaged in research misconduct by intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating data in twelve (12) figure panels” in four grant applications in 2018 and 2019, the ORI said. All of the applications were administratively withdrawn by the agency, one in 2019 and three in 2021.
Jayawardena studied ways to rapidly diagnose tuberculosis, and to deliver drugs to treat various bacteria. She does not appear to have had any papers retracted.
She agreed to have any federally funded work supervised for four years by a “committee of 2-3 senior faculty members at the institution who are familiar with [her] field of research, but not including [her] supervisor or collaborators.”
When she left UAH is unclear. Neither UAH nor Jayawardena immediately responded to a request for comment from Retraction Watch.
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Per the Internet Archive, the last screenshot of the UAH staff site that had her profile was captured on 10/26/2021. The next capture on 3/3/2022 did not have her profile.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211026125428/https://www.uah.edu/science/departments/chemistry/chemistry-faculty-staff
Law and order has to trickle down from the top. We need lead we s that don’t cheat, lie and break the law, including tax fraud.
So telling flat-out lies in order to get money results in… additional people double-checking your requests for the next few years. That isn’t the normal procedure when a poor person commits bank fraud or knowingly lies to tax collectors. Why is the sentence so light when the fraud is committed by a professor?
I agree!! It’s like a major league sport team, except there should be an higher institutional standard in academia. Shame on UA.
Such a lovely young lady that got mixed up with a bad decision or perhaps coerced with the hopes of getting grant money. Sure, let there be justice, but let’s not forget that there are human beings struggling to make a living and competition for grant money is really tought.
I agree with Michael that we must always remember that human beings are involved. But in not sure I’m ready to call her “a lovely young lady” yet as we certainly don’t have the totality of facts and circumstances from this article alone which is something we need in order to consider the human side. I also agree with William that justice can only be served if there is at least an earnest attempt to administer the law equally. I’m speculating that the university was able to terminate her employment for beach of ethics under her contract terms. Her admittance and the multitude of media reports means that she will have a significant hurdle to overcome anytime she applies for a new job as her record should show up on a background check and if she decides to take the entrepreneurial route and start a company, her background is easily discovered by any company she tries to do business with assuming they have a third party due diligence program that meets basic standards.
Let’s also not forget that their are plenty of honest people who would love her job; I see her taking this position as an incredible waste of taxpayer money due to her lack of ethics. She was essentially convicted of fraud, she needs to be kicked out of science for good and if she is an immigrant, deported out of the US. She has no business being here in the US doing research. Maybe selling used cars.
How about paying the money back Ms. FRAUD
The applications were administratively withdrawn, which implies that funding was not awarded – it’s not clear from the text above WHEN, in the process, they were withdrawn but this can be normal when the application is no longer under consideration.